Edited by Anthony Jackson Anthropology at Home | | | i | | | | } ° | Tavistock Publications eb London and New YorkMarilyn Strathern 2 The limits of auto-anthropology (49% } In her account of fieldwork with Travelers in the home counties, Okely records how she *had to learn another language in the words of my mother tongue" (1984: 5). But this distance did nat do sway with the Travellers location ia her own social universe. “Any latent tondeney to teat pple as objects or distant curios has to be confronted, not left repcessd (1984: 6). Sharasul appeats to Malay aeopologists ot to assume tit Because they ate Malay they ean bypass the iong perio of faniirization isthe eld that non-Malays have to undergo in studying rural Malay society he emphasizes the inevitable socal distance between scholar and villager. Uniss they are prepared to approach their own society in A sprit of honest difference, Scholars simply become’ academic mercenaries" (1982; 29), Obviously neither weiter means to imply that situstions might exist in oer places where one soi have to guard against such tendencies. Yet theres more 10 hese Oy ‘comments than simply the point that mara problems take a patiulr fren ‘when anthropologists turn to ‘their own society’. They aise the preliminary, question of haw one knovs when one iat home. For ifin adjusting their double viton, as Oly callsit, there is in the end more in common between her and Shansul tan between either of them their feld areas. in what sense can thoy e sid tobe working at horse? The grounds of femiiarty and distinee sre siting ones infinitely: would a Traveller studying he Travellers be atime? ave tobea Traveler fron this region as opposed fo Mat Fi? Me ase 1 propose is highly specie, and doesnot prelude other ways in which one might be “at home Buti does point to an spect of thro peace that eannot be ignored. consider one way. chen of rescuing the concept of hhome from impossible measurements of degrees ef faniliarty. The con tinwum obseures a conceptual break, What one must alo know is whether of not investigatorfavestgated are equally at home, sit were, with ihe Kinds Premises about social life which infor enthrapotogical enquiry. One x ‘The limits of auto-anthropology 17 while Travellers and Malay villagers are not so at home, in thelr ik ubout ‘community’, ‘socialization’, or ‘class, for example, Elmdoners Avto-anthropology, that is anthropology carried out in the social ext whieh i has « limited distribution. The personal ‘OF ihe anthropologist do Hot tel us whether herahe fs at home in this sense. But what he/she inthe end write, does: whether there is cultural continuity between the products of his/her labours and what people in the socicty being studied produce by way of accounts of themselves Starting with two assumptions ‘Two sets of commonly made assumptions are:* 1, That, as ethnographers, anthropologists on familiar terrain will achieve a greater understanding than elsewhere, because they do not have to sur- 4 Mount linguistic and cultural barriers, Greater understanding may appear a3 immeasurably enriching, or as immeasurably triviatizing, but in either case the amount of information to be gained by aa insider augments what people kriow about themselves, or what can be learned about the total society in aggregate. te 2, That the systematizing anthropological enterprise will be exposed for the is everywhere. It makes the commonplace complex, its systematizations not revealing anything more than everyone knew anysay, and amounting to set of unnecessary mystifcations, / Contactor a these to asumptos are, both sem trom whi is regarded ss 2 senetaingenign of asp hose, ares Fellesviy. The asumpllon shat we Beton lore ante BoloE ooessee ‘Hie ned no bjs stuyrnthuearng sot ouromecety. tad Ihe same tne, a uselves 9 Going te susp bewlng sae nnethods ad tocb of anos. Dement sahpaans shore tg Iupuets «anton he Reser ehetety aie aa TN ipa Meee ind Conse ares Soeitia nc trnbst al dnteeapliew te wk an adneoare titnopepersodcvelopeeitea seer he fomeswelas nesomentet ethnographic dncoune (iz: &84) Fabia (HD) book on te coe fivten ofthe Other ination a hrpaogy explore he presse thceantas sonstutedbyourbnowedg afepseten et Surge Ds 12) The ga! cance cal ava he tae wey tos elo stave tamanves es rgiterso alen eur hey fold Teper rouncs of onn ace (cole 199) Noteupeapy ss Marcus andl Cush ind juate, reflexivity, with ‘heightened self- There is a ~~ Upp Blae 18 Marilyn Strathem “conssioysness, and thus regard ikea personal vir Seti person Gieplays in their wetngs. fc might seer thal ate destined only to irerase an ever mors enqunetiel ‘However, a conceptvl sfx exists ou praetor, nite extent ow eatin Palagal sccounl dot or doesnot endet opts conciption of themselves Dackto themselves = 2 pols whicapplis ea : fy and 10 ‘anthropologial analyis. WHEte it does, opological account qua.anthro: Pale 3 Ne one.can speak, af auto-anthry Fel donot mean rendering buek information isthe form Jig which it was igen: rather, where the anthropological massing of “Knowledge draus'Sn eoeepi Dhich alo long to the society a Sedan pare Tinihe face of it it looks absurd to make such aclaim for (say) an account of fan Essex village. The Elmdon project might ave begun ina mii in which it _ could be assumed thatthe villagers broadly patcipatedin the word view also held by the anthropologist. Yet what started a5 continuity ended as dis, joneion. The ethnogrephic Text wat havdly continuous wi idgenous narrative forms one was not rendering back to the residents ofthe vage 29 ‘ecount immediately contiguous wth those they had give, exsocialhistoryor asbiography might beregatded, tts clear that simply being a'memibe Sterarching culture or society in question does not mean that the anthro: pologist will adopt éppropriate local cultural genes. Oa the contrary he/she ay. well produce something quite unrecogrizabe. Commonsense des- Griptionsare setaside, Indigenous reflection isincorporated spar of thedata tobe explained, and cannot sel framing ti, s0 ih “Ginayas davon belven indigetgan understandings en the analytical Eoreepts which frame the ethnography ivell, The Uerive from a specine heorctical foeus which may make intelligible the anthropologis’s behaviour {es an neademic’) but not neceserly what he/she writes, Attempts to make such aocounts more accessible rest eith. er on edicating the suiencs anthro pologtcally, or on abandoning the traitional ethnographis genre i favour of ’ popular one ~a history or report. The manner in which anthropologists set {aside indigenous framings would seem to make their activities in Essex, then, ‘not s0 dissimilar from their activities (say) in Melanes “This is one source of much recent selfscrutiny of form, thats, the form of anthropological representation itself; hence the experimentation with ethno- ‘graphic texts, of which Clifford (1983) gives a compelling analysis, At issue is ‘the manner in which ethnographic authority is constructed in reference tothe ‘voices of those supplying information, and the part they are given in the resultant texts, FavretSaada refers to 2s fantastical the construction of anthropologieal accounts in which the speaker is denied subjectivity (the Informant can never occupy the postion of ') and the autora! subject (the anthropologist) has no name (1980: 28). The going assumption seems t0 be that by imaginative effort in the act of representation she ethnographer can Re yeti we aw x K The limits of auto-anthropology 19 play with subjest-objest relations so as to bring back into hisfber texts the Eistinetive voices of hisherinterlocutors, The new genre may display itself as Giatogical or polyphonic (Clifford's terms for a construction preserving slogue ond producing discourse rather than text) and taken as standing for shored authorship. 1 would regerd such ‘joint products with suspicion And | think we must domore than warty about ‘voices and'speakers' o7 compli Wvithpinformanis so-called, Quite evtcal is not simply the exteat 0 which zetors ate allowed to speak, the openness with which the original dialogues ‘produced, or ihe restoration of their subjectivity through narrative levies ut what kinds of wuthors they themselves are. We need 1o have some sense ofthe productive activity which ies behind whot people say, and thus their own relationship to what hus been suid, Without kaowring how they ‘own’ their evn words, ste cannot know what we have done in appropriating them. “This i elevant o the domesticdilemma (knowing more about ourselves as objects and knowing more about oueelvesas subjects). The question i the form in which our onn productive activity becomes the basis for such rlation- ships as might exist hetween ‘ourselves’ as anthropologists and the selves tinder stucly. The eualty of the social reloionship established here is not lonply a, awe OT personal management, “sponsor be nature of “Faclaty is questTon in the same way, anthtopological self-knowledge is not Simply a function of personal ehueneteisties such a how rach is shared with the people being sted (closeaess and distance) or degree of sensitivity to fone’ ovtn scholarly constittion (se-consciousness). Such sell-knowedge i {ko £0 be located in he social techniques of ethaographie/anthropologteal production. Gudeman and Pean (1982; 99) refer to this as ‘systemic fellexivity". Fubinn’s conclusion that our theories of their societies are our = the way Hr wich We prodes had Foprodce Knowledge of the Othet for out societies (1983: 168, emphasis removed) suggests that if we are to be attuned to anything it should be to the nature ofthe productive activity. “The ww nssuptions abovt reflexivity’ = that it teads to both greater understanding and to unnecessary mysifcation ~are specifically artefacts of nuto-ontheopology. To demonstrate this, { open up certain lfferences between the Essex silage anc Melanesian one. A mutual context 3s povided by a eriiism wich relates directly to proguctive activity. (This Epplies especially oethnographies' insofar as they are perceived to De about specilic penple at specie places and times: but mest books which cont cthaagraphy comprise mixed gente, ineiing aktempis at anthropological theory. a state ofafuir which contributes to the eitcsm noted here. intend feference to this mined geare when L refer to ‘ethnographic™ or ‘anthro- pologicat” accounts.) Cetin is made in both places of the relationship {which members of the community in question perceive between themselves nnd the fnvestigator in reference to what the investigator f producing. They suspect that they ae beingexploted?